Lovers Beware

Ohio may be for lovers, but Oklahoma certainly is not. If you’re looking to be married in the Sooner State then you’d better reconsider. Unless, of course, you’re getting married for procreation purposes..only. After trying to marry in their home state in 2009, Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin (a lesbian couple of 17 years) sued Tulsa County Court Clerk Sally Howe Smith, who had refused them their license. In the 63-page brief filed by Smith’s lawyers, from the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom (anybody else find that name a bit ironic?), the court heard that the plaintiffs plan to “reduce marriage from an institution that exists to benefit children and society, and relegate it to a mere stamp through which the government approves loving, emotional unions between adult couples.”

Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin

According to Smith and the ADF, marriage has one purpose and one purpose only: baby-making. Turn up the Marvin Gaye, my married folks, and get to work! According to Smith and the ADF, no person interested in maintaining their loving, emotional union with their consenting adult partner and enjoying the benefits entitled to them by a mere governmental stamp are going to be granted that right unless they intend to procreate. Sorry, guys, marriage is not about love or rights or happiness or commitment or romance or any of those stupids ideals you grew up with as a child. It’s about tiny, crying piles of poop.

What I want to know is, what about those that cannot? This brief does not pardon the elderly couples who wish to marry, or the couples who suffer from an inability to reproduce, or couples who are considering adoption. No, only those couples who can and will be making more babies through their own DNA. According to Oklahoma’s 2004 group of voters, no one should be allowed the titles “husband” or “wife” unless they’re capable of the titles “mommy” or “daddy”. Let’s ignore, for a moment, the fact that some couples simply shouldn’t be parents. Because they’re terrible people who would suck at it. Three cheers for my parents’ generation, am I right?

Sally Howe Smith

The ADF further argued that the Supreme Court has found repeatedly that marriage is fundamental to the survival of the human race. Right. Because it’s physically impossible to have a baby outside of wedlock. Considering how Oklahoma celebrates the second-highest birthrate among 15- to 19-year-olds in the country, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the state is now putting so much emphasis on procreation-capable couples looking to marry. If you haven’t had a kid by the time you’re 20, you’re probably doing something wrong according to the backwoods ignants that is the entire voting population of Oklahoma. I don’t know why these people care so much about who gets the marriage licenses or who has the babies – they clearly have enough babies to go around.

Ultimately, what this lawsuit will decide is whether or not my 30+ year relationship with a man I love very deeply, but have no children with, is as valuable to the government and the state as a one year marriage between two punk kids who got knocked up in a high school bathroom and beat their kids. Ultimately, what this lawsuit will decide is whether or not Oklahoma voters value sex more than love.

I guess I just don’t understand where the logic is in denying a right to someone based on reproductive plans. Like, how is that any of the government’s business? How is that any of your business, my beloved audience? It’s not. Just like it’s none of my damn business what you want to do with your sperm or eggs. Dig a hole and bury it, donate it, throw it at people (just kidding, don’t do this, is illegal). The government doesn’t have a place on my ring finger. The only reason marriage is even a legal issue to begin with is because the government figured out there was a way to tax you for it. I think all marriage is stupid and would never recommend it but I also believe that every person should have the right to participate in the same stupid activities.

My name is Chelsey Mick, and this is how we value sex and love more than marriage.